I saw this a couple weeks ago at a screening by the Desert Film Society in Palm Springs. We were fortunate to have the film's Director/Writer/Editor/Actor Christopher James along with the films co-editor and fellow actor Eric Michael Cole and actor Pat Healey on hand to present the film and take Q&A at the film's conclusion. For the 17 commenter's on this film so far here at IMDb who gave this a 10 even James himself likely doesn't consider it a 10 since he said he planned to make additional edits to the the current screened version. This film is reminiscent at first of Jim McBride's 1967 film called David Hotzman's Diary about a fictional documentary of a character named David Holtzman who films a week in his life. It appears like the film is an actual documentary but everything is scripted. Blair Witch would of course use a similar technique years later. This starts out a little awkward but then gets rolling where you realize this is a well drafted script but you still wonder how much may be ad libbing which may or may not distract from the viewer of the film. I found a slight inconsistency in the films setting and an unexplained element of the films premise and a couple other minor elements that I would rather not write a spoiler about so as to not bring up questions before a lot of people have had a chance to view this film. It features a great young cast of actors, some of which have an extensive body of film and television work besides James, Cole and Healy including Judy Greer, Nicolle Tom, Matt Keeslar, Monet Mazur, Jeremy Sisto and Christine Larkin among the large ensemble cast. I liked Nicolle Tom and her character the most in this cast and would have liked to have maybe a little more of an expansion of that character here. Daniel Teper does the original music soundtrack and the music of Scottish band Belle & Sebastian are featured throughout the film. Some in my audience noted an offense to the film's rapid fire swear words in the film's beginning which may have distracted from the film initially although it isn't like that throughout the film. It's a good script and good acting and although a low budget independent film it looks good. I would give it an 7.5 out of 10.
Review of In Memory of My Father
